Ricardo Montalban ST:II DVD Signing Report

In the 16 years that I've been a 'Star Trek' fan, Ricardo Montalban has never done a 'Trek'-related event,
whether it be a signing or a convention. Needless to say, it was quite a
pleasant surprise when Paramount Home Video issued a press release to the media
in late June announcing that Montalban would be at the Sam Goody at the Universal
Citywalk to talk with the media and sign autographs for his fans.

Montalban, now 79, has been in the acting business for almost 50 years.
Unfortunately, as of late, he has not acted in many projects, most likely due
to his paralysis. As far as I can recall, his last acting "gig" was a recent
commercial for Taco
Bell.

Still, that did not prevent the media and his fans from showing up in a rather
sizeable turnout for the veteran actor. This included many of the local
television news channels (UPN
13 will no doubt cover his appearance as a lead-in from tonight's 'Star
Trek: Voyager' into their 10:00 PM newscast) and Hispanic news
organizations. As for the fans, I overheard one Sam Goody employee mention
that there were well over 500 fans who were in line outside.

The event was arranged so that a set number of fans received their autographs
from Montalban, then one or two media organizations interviewed him, and so
on.

Since there were so many fans in line and a finite amount of time to accomodate
them, the media were unfortunately only able to ask Montalban a limited number
of questions. As a result, many of the questions that TrekToday readers
submitted (and I really thank each and every one of you who did so because
there were a lot of great questions) unfortunately could not be
answered.

At any rate, given the circumstances of the event, I really don't have much in
the way of complaints (maybe one or two quibbles but to be perfectly honest
that was it) about how it was run, and I really have to give Montalban credit
for making a public appearance despite his paralysis. I really hope this
wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime appearance and that he makes additional appearances
in the future.